Time Dancers (23 page)

In the spring of 1924, we welcomed back baseball and our long, slow walks in Forest Park, then farther to the south along Hawthorne and Longfellow Streets, and all through the cultured, diverse beauty of Shaw’s Garden. Except for an enigmatic postcard from Geaxi, we heard little from Europe or anywhere else. The adage “no news is good news” became our maxim and comfort. Geaxi’s note on the postcard was written in Basque and transitional Meq. Translated, it read:

NOVA WITH ME—VISIONS AND VOICES DAILY—R.

AND O. OFF TO FIND THE PEARL—I MAY HAVE FOUND

SOMETHING BIGGER—EGIBIZIRIK BILATU—G.

I knew the Pearl referred to Zuriaa, and the news about Nova was worrisome, but not unexpected. However, the “something bigger” was a mystery. Sailor sent no word, nor did Ray or Opari, which was not unusual, but still caused a few unsettling dreams.

Solomon Jack Flowers turned eighteen in April and made the startling announcement he was not attending college in the fall. Instead, he was going directly to work as a staff writer for
The Sporting News.
He had already published a few articles under his current pseudonym, Solomon Jack. He said the name made him sound wise. Carolina stifled a laugh, rolled her eyes, and simply wished him well.

The Cardinals had another so-so season, but Sunny Jim had a good year along with arguably the best right-handed hitter of all time, Rogers Hornsby, the Cardinals shortstop. He hit .424 that year, an amazing batting average. He was a difficult man, however; blunt, brutally honest, and gray eyes cold as stone. “The Rajah,” he was called. Sunny Jim had another name for him—“Jolly Rogers”—because Hornsby had smiled twice all season, on and off the field.

Late in the year we got to watch what became Nova Gastelu’s final screen performance. The film was Erich von Stroheim’s
Greed.
In the original, unedited version, Nova plays a waif and street urchin in a dozen scenes and is completely convincing. She truly is an actress. Unfortunately, no one will ever know. Owen Bramley, through various contacts and transfers of favors and money, had arranged for all of us to see a private screening of the original version in St. Louis. We entered the theater at ten in the morning and exited just in time for dinner, eight hours and fifty reels later. The film the public saw was only twenty percent that length. The rest was cut and disappeared from Hollywood forever, and so did Nova. After hearing about Zuriaa, she became convinced by Geaxi to end her life as a Giza “movie star.”

In January of 1925, on the night of the twenty-third, I experienced a Walking Dream unlike any I had ever dreamed before. In total darkness, I rose from my bed and discovered dozens of tiny handprints glowing on the door of my bedroom. I walked toward them and the door swung open by itself. No one was there, but I saw more handprints on the walls of the hall outside. I followed them to the stairs and down to the first floor and through the living room. Eventually, they led to the small room where Georgia’s old upright piano still stood. The handprints covered the piano, glowing white, yellow, orange, and red. A large book lay open where the sheet music usually sat. The handprints were bright enough to illuminate the text. It was
The Odyssey
by Homer. Odysseus was on his return home to take vengeance on the suitors of Penelope. It was at the failing of the old moon and the coming of the new. My eyes focused on one line. It read, “The sun vanished out of heaven and an evil gloom had covered all things about the hour of the midday meal, during the celebration of new moon.” I closed the book and instantly the handprints disappeared. At that moment, I became aware of where I was and rubbed my eyes, which were watering. When I reopened them, the book had also disappeared.

The next day, Mitch dropped by in the afternoon for a sandwich. It was cold and snow still covered the ground. In the kitchen, he took off his coat and muffler and blew into his hands, saying, “Guess what happened in Ithaca today, Z.”

“Ithaca?” I asked.

“Yeah…Ithaca, New York, where my father lived.”

“What happened?”

“A total eclipse of the sun.” He paused and blew into his hands again, then shook his head. “Man,” he said, “I sure would like to see one of those.”

I looked past him, through the kitchen window in the direction of Carolina’s “Honeycircle,” which was blanketed in snow. I walked over to the window and blew on it. I pressed my hand against it, then took it away, leaving a perfect handprint on the frosted glass. “Yes,” I said, “they are dreams in the sky.”

On March 18 of that year, Carolina, Mitch, and Jack were nearly killed, not by Zuriaa or the Fleur-du-Mal, but by something just as unpredictable and deadly—a tornado. The storm is still called the Great Tri-State Tornado because it was the most powerful, destructive tornado in American history.

Mitch had instigated the trip, a scouting trip to Carbondale, Illinois, where he planned on meeting a young black ballplayer named Caleb Bellows, whom Mitch thought might make an excellent center fielder for the St. Louis Stars. Carolina and Jack simply went along for the drive. By two o’clock in the afternoon, they had passed through Perryville on Highway 61 and were heading south. Suddenly, on the horizon to the southwest, a huge black cloud appeared. It was moving at a rate of sixty miles per hour. Mitch decided to stop and pull over on the side of the road. They each got out of the car and stared as it roared by in the distance. The funnel cloud seemed already obscured by flying debris and the giant tornado had only begun its swath of devastation. It crossed the Mississippi and charged through Illinois and Indiana, lasting a record three and a half hours on the ground, with the funnel averaging a quarter mile in width and occasionally growing as wide as a mile. An estimated 690 people were killed. If Mitch had not stopped when he did, the number would surely have been 693.

On May 30, Rogers Hornsby replaced Branch Rickey and became a player-manager. Rickey remained as vice president and continued to develop his ingenious farm system. St. Louis lost the next two games, a doubleheader in Pittsburgh, even though Hornsby hit two home runs in the second game. The summer passed and the Cardinals again could only look forward to next year.

The pace of life at Carolina’s was fast, but full and peaceful. I neither heard nor felt danger. There were no surprises, no real worries, but also no word from Opari, Ray, Geaxi, Nova, or Sailor. I carried the Stone with me at all times, as always, and never used it. More like a rare coin or a lucky charm, the Stone of Dreams was only something slightly heavy in my pocket. I did receive one long letter from Willie Croft in November. It was sent from a town in Wales that was eighteen letters long and unpronounceable. He said he missed St. Louis dearly, but he went on and on about Caitlin’s Ruby, saying he finally had found someone he could trust to live there permanently. Through Mowsel and with the full approval of Pello Txopitea, his son Koldo would become caretaker and overseer. Arrosa, now Koldo’s wife, would accompany him. I let Star read the letter and she smiled as she read it, laughing to herself. I could tell she wanted to see Willie again. As she handed it back to me, she said, “I can hear his voice.”

The early months of 1926 flew by and another premier musician became a close friend of our family. He was from Davenport, Iowa, and his name was Leon Bismarck Beiderbecke, better known to everyone as Bix. He played the cornet and he played with fire and precision, as well as being a brilliant composer. He played with black players at the Chauffer’s Club and with white players at the Tremps Bar on Delmar and the Arcadia Ballroom on Olive. His musical influences, abilities, and interests were as diverse and complex as his playing. Many times he attended concerts of the St. Louis Symphony with Carolina, Owen, and their mutual friend, the jazz pianist Bud Hassler. Bix left St. Louis that summer and only lived a few more years, unfortunately. He died young during an alcoholic seizure at the age of twenty-eight. I still think he is one of the best horn players ever.

Jack was working more and more, traveling to sporting events and publishing funny vignettes taken mostly from baseball; hilarious characters based loosely on real players Sunny Jim had known. Jack also discovered a young writer and a new book that changed his destiny, if there is such a thing. The writer’s name was Hemingway. He had been born in Chicago, but now lived in Paris. The book was
The Sun Also Rises.
Jack knew instinctively the writing was new and good; however, it was Spain, the Pyrenees, and Basque country that captured Jack’s heart and imagination.

Caine and I made numerous trips to Forest Park and the Zoo, especially the bear pits, where we rarely spoke and watched for hours. I always acted as his older brother. He was only eight years old, but he was approaching my height at an alarming rate. He called me Zianno now instead of Zano, and I missed hearing it.

In October, one of the most competitive and magical seasons in the history of Cardinals baseball concluded with a National League Pennant and a chance to play the Yankees in the World Series. Carolina had box seats and season tickets, and because of it we were offered the first opportunity to buy tickets to all home games, which we did without hesitation. The Yankees were considered the most feared team in baseball, with a lineup called “Murderers’ Row,” consisting of Babe Ruth, Bob Meusel, Lou Gehrig, and Tony Lazzeri. They had hitting, pitching, and depth, but it made no difference. The Cardinals were led by a perfect mix of talented young players like Sunny Jim Bottomley, as well as experienced veterans, such as Rogers Hornsby and the grizzled Grover Cleveland Alexander. He was broken down and alcoholic and near the end of his career, but at one time he had been considered one of the greatest pitchers in baseball. Mitch asked Sunny Jim about him in June, the day the Cardinals purchased Alexander from the Cubs. He said, “Now I’m not saying I’m a bettin’ man, Sunny Jim, but let’s pretend I was. What I’m askin’ is…uh…well, how bad is he?” Sunny Jim scratched his head, then laughed. “Mitch, I’ll just say one thing about it. You can smell him long before you ever see him.”

On the afternoon of October 10 with the series tied 3–3, we gathered around the big radio in Carolina’s living room and turned up the volume. In the bottom of the seventh inning, the Cardinals were trying to hold a 3–2 lead. There were two men out and the bases were loaded with Tony Lazzeri batting. Hornsby stopped the action and called for Grover Cleveland Alexander in the bullpen. Drunk and still half-asleep, Alexander walked to the pitching mound. He got Lazzeri to strike out, but not before Lazzeri hit a long fly ball, barely foul in the left field stands. The Cardinals were out of the inning with their lead intact. In the ninth Babe Ruth was thrown out at second base to end the game and the Cardinals won the World Series of 1926. Much later, Grover Cleveland Alexander described it this way: “Less than a foot made the difference between a hero and a bum.”

On a cold, gray day in December, the Cardinals’ owner, Sam Breadon, surprised everyone by trading the manager and second baseman, Rogers Hornsby. “The Rajah” had asked for a three-year contract since the Cardinals won the World Series and they traded him instead. Sunny Jim said, “It’s going to be hard filling his shoes, no matter who takes his place.” There was no irony in his voice. I could tell he meant what he said, regardless of how he felt about Hornsby the man. Then he added, “That’s baseball.”

I had hoped to hear news from Opari and Ray by the New Year, but none came. Geaxi, Nova, all remained silent. Most of my time during the winter of 1927 was spent in the kitchen, talking with Ciela about Cuban cooking and discussing the subtleties of the shortstop position with Biscuit. On March 2, I was working on a crossword puzzle when Jack burst into the kitchen and threw a newspaper down on the table, then walked over to the stove to see what Ciela was cooking. I picked up the newspaper and began to browse through the pages. On the third page, I recognized a name in a column about a young airmail pilot, currently living in St. Louis. The name was Charles Lindbergh and I remembered the tall, skinny barnstormer whose timely actions had saved Geaxi’s life. He had just begun construction in San Diego on a single-engine, custom-built airplane he planned on flying nonstop from New York to Paris, alone. At stake was the Orteig Prize of $25,000, originally offered in 1919 to the first one who could accomplish the transatlantic feat. In the years since, several good pilots and their aircraft had exploded or disappeared in failed attempts. Lindbergh would be the first to try it solo. He said his plane would be ready in sixty days and would be called the
Spirit of St. Louis.
Investors in the project were all local St. Louis businessmen, including E. Lansing Ray of the
Globe-Democrat.
The publisher of the rival
Post-Dispatch
had declined to invest, saying, “I want no part of a one-man, quixotic enterprise.” The column ended with the writer praising Lindbergh’s courage and wishing him luck, referring to him as “the lone eagle.” The writer’s name was Jack Flowers. In the sports section, I found another short piece about Babe Ruth signing a new three-year contract with the Yankees that paid him an estimated $70,000 per season, a tremendous amount of money for a ballplayer. The piece was informative, incisive, and well written. The writer’s name at the bottom: Jack Flowers. I looked up and he was standing by the stove. He was a carbon copy of his father, Nicholas (Nick) Flowers, without the mustache.

“What happened to ‘Solomon Jack’?” I asked.

He glanced back, knowing I’d found and read the articles. “He still works for the
Sporting News,
” Jack said, then smiled. “But not for long.”

On March 3, Oliver “Biscuit” Bookbinder’s life was also about to change. Just before noon, Sunny Jim telephoned long distance from Florida with an offer that Biscuit could not refuse. A team the Cardinals played in exhibition games, a traveling all-star team playing out of Cuba, was missing a shortstop. The regular shortstop had disappeared near Sarasota with a burlesque dancer from Miami. If Biscuit could make it down to Florida in three days, Sunny Jim said he would get the job at shortstop, or at least a shot at it. Sunny Jim told him he was good enough to do it.